1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a management technique of managing a file.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has conventionally been known a document management system in which a plurality of users share an electronic document file. In general, the document management system can set a right to access a document file and folder so as to limit the users who can refer to or edit a specific document file. The access right is the authority to allow a user or terminal to utilize shared resources such as a file and folder. A system administrator can use a network OS to set the level of authority given to each user.
There are various methods of selecting a user to whom a system administrator assigns an access right when setting a right to access a predetermined document file or folder.
A method of individually selecting each user registered in the system or a method of selecting a group of users to select each user belonging to the group is generally employed. There is also proposed a method of selecting a user attribute to select a user having this attribute (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-280990).
However, the conventional document management system has a problem that no general user (user other than a system administrator) can refer to who has a right to access a document file to be registered as a shared resource. A user not intended to see the document file may have the access right, or a user intended to see the document file may not have the access right. This will be exemplified.
For example, a user registers a document file in a document management system at his office, in order to open it to only users belonging to the same division as him. However, the user cannot confirm who actually has a right to access the registered document file and can refer to it. In other words, the user cannot confirm whether the access right is assigned within a desired range. If a user of another division has the access right, he can refer to the registered document file.
Even in the use of the selection method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-280990, the same problem occurs when the attribute of a user having the access right is unknown.
Even if a user has a right to refer to who has the access right, it is very cumbersome to confirm who actually has the access right. The user sometimes skips the confirmation, posing the same problem.